Well, good morning everyone.
We don't have the piano playing. It's kind of hard to tell when
it's time to start. I'll put one of those two minute warning things
up like the NFL. So it's good to see y'all. If you would open your Bibles
with me to Mark chapter six, Mark the sixth chapter. Before
we begin, let's bow before our Lord together in prayer. Our Father, we very carefully
and reverently and humbly come before your throne of grace this
morning, daring only plead the obedience of your son as our
only hope of righteousness, pleading his precious blood as the only
hope of cleansing and forgiveness of our sin. We come before you
begging that you would accept us in him, accept our praise
and our thanksgiving that you hear our petitions all in him
for christ's sake father how thankful we are for this opportunity
that we can come before your throne accepted because of who
our lord jesus christ is that while we come carefully and reverently
we can come boldly confidently because of who our lord jesus
christ is and what he has accomplished for his people And Father, you
know the need of our heart this morning. We've gathered here
together to worship you, to hear a word from you. And Father,
I pray that as we open your word and look into it, that you would
be our teacher, that you would use the faltering words from
man's sinful lips to man's sinful ears. And Father, you'd be our
teacher and that you'd apply your word to our hearts, that
you'd give us faith in Christ, that you'd increase our faith
and our trust in him, that you'd increase our love and devotion
for him. Well, we pray for ourselves.
We pray for our children's classes, especially in this hour. And
Father, we pray for your word, wherever it's preached, wherever
your people gather together. Father, bless it for your great
namesake. How we continue to beg of thee that you'd show us
your glory in this dark and difficult day in which we live. Father,
that you'd show us your redemptive glory in the person of your son,
and that you'd show us your glory in the lesson this morning. Father,
all these things we ask and we give thanks in that name which
is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
The Lord and His Church. The passage we'll look at is
a well-known passage. It's the miracle of the loaves
and the fishes. And this miracle is the only miracle that's recorded
in all four Gospels. There's only three things or
three events that are recorded in all four Gospels. It's the
death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and this miracle of
the loaves and the fishes. So that tells me there's something
important for us to learn here. This is also the most public
miracle that our Lord performed. So obviously, it's meant to be
seen, to be heard, and to be understood. And I want us to
look at this miracle as a picture of the Lord and his church. There's
a picture here of who the Lord is to his church and what he's
done for it. So number one, the Lord gives
his church as a place of rest for his people. Let's begin looking
at Mark 6, verse 30. And the apostles gathered themselves
together unto Jesus. and told him all things, both
what they had done and what they had taught. And he said unto
them, come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest
a while. For there were many coming and
going and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed
into a desert place by ship privately. Now can you imagine how discouraged
these disciples were when they came to the Lord and they told
him All things they'd done. They told him what had happened.
They told him about the death of John the Baptist. And you
know, they had to feel so defeated. Their hearts were filled with
sorrow. They're just brokenhearted. They
loved John. They'd been his disciples. They'd
heard him preach often. They'd been with him. And now,
they didn't just hear how John had died by being beheaded. But
they had to go see his headless body and take that headless body
and go and bury it. You wouldn't be surprised at
all to find out there's some PTSD going on here. I mean, this
was a gruesome sight to see their former teacher have his head
cut off like this and bury his body. And they come and tell
the Lord, and the Lord gave them a place of rest. And I'll tell
you what the important thing about this place of rest was.
It was alone with him. It was alone with him. That's
how they could rest, by being alone with the Lord. And that's
what every local church is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a
place where God's people come together. And we're all together,
but we're alone with the Lord. We're alone with the Lord who
is our peace, who's peace for our souls, who is rest for our
souls. When the gospel of Christ is
preached, there should be rest. This should be a place we come
and rest. We rest from the ways of the
world, the things of the world, because we come to hear Christ
preached. And when we hear him preached, there's rest for our
souls. There's rest from the works of
the law. You know, we go through the week and that old man's constantly
in our ear telling us how we, you know, you better do this,
you better do this, you better do this, you better, you know,
act right and fly right, you know, or God's not going to be
pleased with you. And we hear Christ preached and
there's rest from the works of the law in there because Christ
has already fulfilled them all for us. There's rest from a guilty
conscience when we hear Christ preached. There's no reason to
have a guilty conscience if Christ has bore your sin and your guilt
away, put it away. There's rest from the ceremonies
of religion. You can do away with the ceremony
and putting on a false religious front. You can rest from that
and just worship Christ when he's preached. You know, when
we're with Christ, there's rest. And we gather here, he has promised,
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I
am in the midst. This is a place we can be alone
with the Lord and find rest for our souls. That's what the local
church is to be. It's a sheep fold where the sheep
can come and have some rest. Then number two, the Lord's the
teacher in his church. Now the Lord uses pastors and
teachers to preach his word. But if we are gonna learn anything,
the Lord's our teacher. Look at verse 33. And the people
saw them departing and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out
of all cities, and out went them, and came together unto him. And
Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with
compassion toward them, because they were a sheep, not having
a shepherd. And he began to teach them many
things. Now, I don't know who all these
people were, but I do know this about them. Most of them, if
not all of them, were not believers. I know that because very soon
they're going to quit following the Lord. Very soon they're going
to leave him when they truly hear what he's preaching. They're
finally going to really hear what he's saying and they're
going to say, this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? Who
can stand this? Who wants this? We're leaving. So they, most of them weren't
believers, but you know, the Lord still had compassion on
them. He had compassion on their suffering. Matthew tells us many of these
people were sick, and the Lord spent the day healing their sick. All day, he spent healing their
sick. His heart, now you think about this, his heart is the
heart of God, was moved with compassion for people who were
needy. I tell you, the whole question
of whether or not God's gonna save us is our need. Are we poor? and needy. His heart was moved
with compassion because they were needy. He was moved with
compassion for the sick and he healed them. His whole being
was moved because of their need and had compassion on them and
healed them. Now that's the character of the Savior that we trust.
And isn't that the character of a Savior we need to save us?
I tell you, we need a Savior who has compassion. on our sin
sick souls, don't we? We need a savior who has compassion
on our need. God has requirements of us and
we can't fulfill them. We can't do them. We need mercy. We need grace. We need life.
We need everything. I need a savior who's compassionate
for the needy. That's who he is. He hasn't changed
from then till now. He's still compassionate on the
needy. Our Savior is compassionate for
those that need Him. So any sinner that comes to Christ
begging for forgiveness will be forgiven. He'll have compassion
on them. Any sinner, if they're needy,
and they come to Christ, and they beg to be saved on God's
terms, by Christ alone, without our help, God'll save them, because
He has compassion on the needy. God does not destroy his people
in wrath. He doesn't destroy anyone in
wrath quickly. He's moved with compassion for his people. And
instead of giving them the wrath that they deserve, he gives them
his tender mercies because he has compassion. And then when
the Lord's with his people, he teaches them. Now all Mark tells
us is that he began to teach them many things, but I got a
real good idea of what he taught them based on the times that
he preached and what he preached and what he taught was recorded.
The Lord taught them the scriptures. He sat them down and he told
them how the scriptures point to him. How the scriptures all
reveal him. He took those Old Testament types
and pictures and told them how he's the fulfillment of them.
Just like he told You know, the people so many times, this day
is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. He taught himself. He taught them him. It wasn't
just different doctrinal stances. He taught them him. One of my
favorite John Chapman quotes is this, Christ is the teacher
and Christ is the lesson. Only Christ can teach us Christ.
Only Christ can teach us him. Now, our lips are going to hear
that lesson from the lips of a sinful man, a man that God's
called it to preaching. But the Savior is the one that
teaches our heart. When it comes time to teach his people, the
Lord teaches his people. And he takes particular care
in doing it because he's the shepherd. The Lord is the shepherd
that leads and guides his church. He had compassion on these people
because they were sheep not having a shepherd, so he was their shepherd. Now again, even today, the Lord
is the shepherd of the sheep, isn't he? The great shepherd
of the sheep. Now he uses under shepherds. He uses pastors in
the local church, but God's the one leading the church. You know,
this is his church. It's not mine. It's his. He leads
his people. And aren't you glad to know that
when Lord looks at his people, he has compassion on them as
sheep not having a shepherd. I'm so glad to read that, because
sheep who don't have a shepherd are in serious trouble. Sheep
are weak, and they're defenseless. We need the shepherd to defend
us, don't we? Sheep are stupid animals. I guess stupid is a
frowned upon word. Is that what a frowned upon word
now? But that's what sheep are. They're stupid animals. We have
to have the shepherd to lead us to pastures with green grass
and beside the still waters or we'll never find it. Sheep will
naturally wander off into danger. They just don't pay attention.
They'll just wander off towards the lion's den. They'll wander
off toward a cliff or something, you know. We need the shepherd
to use his rod and his staff to comfort us. to whack us on
the side, you know, to keep us in the narrow way, looking to
Christ alone. That's what the Lord our shepherd
does for his church. And if the Lord's our shepherd,
he's not leaving you alone. He's not leaving you to figure
this thing out on your own. Doesn't that give you confidence?
If the Lord's your shepherd, he will never lead you wrong.
Never. And he won't let you go your
own way very long either. He's the shepherd of his sheep.
Then number three, the people that you find in God's church,
they give what they can and the Lord blesses it. Look at verse
35. And when the day was now far
spent, his disciples came unto him and said, this is a desert
place. And now the time is far past.
Send them away that they may go into the country roundabout
and into the villages and by themselves bread, for they have
nothing to eat. And he answered and said unto them, give ye them
to eat. And they say unto him, should
we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread and give them to eat?
He saith unto them, how many loaves have ye? Go and see. And
when they knew, they say, five and two fishes. Now we know from
the other accounts of this, that this is what they found. These
five loaves and two fishes are a boy's sack lunch. And they asked the Lord, what
is this among so many? I mean, this is all we got, just
this little bit. How can this little bit make
any difference whatsoever? Now, apparently, that boy willingly
gave up his sack lunch. And I remember being a little
boy, and I guess I'm not far removed from this attitude now. I'm not giving up my food very
easily. I mean, boy, when I was a boy, I mean, I could eat. And
this boy willingly gave up his lunch. I mean, it wasn't much,
was it? But it's all he had to give.
It's the same as that widow woman. Remember, the Lord was there
after the service there in the temple, and the people were coming
in, putting their money in the treasury. And Lord watched this
little widow woman. Can't you just see her? She's
on a cane. She's walking slow. She's hunched over. She puts
two mites. Just two mites in the box. Not much. It's not much. I don't know how
many dollars and cents that's worth, but I promise you, it's
very low. And our Lord said, she's cast more in than everybody
else. Because it's all she has. She
gave what she had to give. And we'll wonder, well, how on
earth is just this little bit going to help anything? How's
this little bit going to make any difference, you know? Now, the local church, is supported
by the giving of the church. We send out the gospel from this
place by the giving of the church. The Lord blesses it. It's the
Lord power that does it. But there's a financial cost
to this thing, and that's supported by the local church. And every
one of us think this. I don't have much. I mean, it's
so little. I mean, what difference is my
little bit, my little two mites, going to make? It's just so little? Well, I tell you, don't worry
about that. Just give what the Lord enables
you to give. As the Lord's prospered you,
that's how you give. You'll be surprised what the
Lord can do with it. The Lord took this boy's lunch
and fed 5,000 men, plus women and children. You'd be surprised
what the Lord can do with it. See, the Lord blesses acts of
faith of His people, and you know, often, I say often, maybe
always, in spite of us, and in spite of our attitudes. Here's
these people. Now, the Lord, they came out,
the Lord had compassion on them, their sheep not having a shepherd.
You can tell the Lord cared about these people. He spent all day
healing them. He spent all day teaching them. And after seeing
the Master, His compassion and what he's doing for these people.
When it starts to get to be evening time, you know what the disciples
said? Send them away. We're calling men to Christ.
How often do we say, well, send them away. Let them provide for
themselves, send them away. But the Lord's gonna provide
for his people anyway because he had compassion on his people
and he used giving to do it. All right, here's the fourth
thing. The Lord feeds his church by his sovereign power. Verse
39 says that he commanded them to make all sit down by companies
upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by
hundreds and by fifties. And when he had taken the five
loaves and two fishes, he looked up to heaven and blessed and
break the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before
them. And the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did
all eat and were filled. And they took up 12 baskets full
of the fragments and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the
loaves were about 5,000 men. 5,000 men plus women and children. Maybe 10 or 12,000 people all
together were fed by these five loaves and these two fishes.
Now think of the situation here. These people have been with the
Lord. They ran out after him. They've been with him all day.
Everybody who had need of healing had been healed. The Lord had
taught people. But now they're hungry. I mean,
they've been out there in this desert place all day. I mean,
there's not McDonald's and fruit stands around. There's nothing
to eat out there. They've been all day without
eating. And the Lord had compassion on them. The disciples had sent
them away, but the Lord would not do it. He would not send
these people away to fend for themselves. I say again, that's the Savior
I need. How about you? Who will not send me away. He will not make me go fend for
myself. Now here's this multitude. Now
they're hungry. This multitude and all they had between them
was this boys, five loaves and two sardines. That's what they
had. Now how in this world is that going to feed so many people? It won't if it's left up to us.
It won't if it's left up to us, will it? Now you see the picture? This is what man's religion does.
Man's sinful and needs to be saved. Man's got this problem
with sin and it must be cleansed. It must be taken away. The holy
God is angry, he must be appeased. There must be something to appease
his justice so that he'll accept us. And here's what the solution
man's religion has come up with. We're gonna put people to work.
We're just gonna put the harness on them and we're gonna put them
to work. But our work is never enough.
Left up to ourselves, what we have, what we can produce, it
will never get the job done. Now man's religion has calculated
a way to pay the price. They've calculated a way of salvation,
but it always comes up short. And you know why? They've left
Christ out of it. They've left the Savior out of
it. They've left life out of it. They've left righteousness
out of it. That's man's religion. But in God's church, we depend
on the power of God, don't we? We depend upon the Lord. We depend
on his power to save. We depend on His power to feed
His people. We depend on His power to teach
His people, to teach the hearts of His people. We depend upon
the power of the Lord to comfort the hearts of God's people. I know some comforting words.
I know some comforting scriptures. When I read them, you know, they
comfort me. I can tell you things that I find comforting. But you
talk about comforting the heart now. Who can do that but God? We depend on His power to comfort
the hearts of His people. So our Savior took this boy's
lunch in His hands and He started breaking it. He gave thanks and
He started breaking it and started handing it out. And as He broke
those loaves and those fishes, you know what He was doing? He
was creating food. He was creating matter that was
not there before. Now that's power. Power to create
something that was not there before. Now that's the Savior
that we need. We need a Savior who's got the
power to put sin away. We need a Savior who has the
power to create new life in us. Life that was not there before.
A nature that was not there before. This flesh cannot be fixed up. It can't be reformed. It can't
be made good enough. We need a Savior who's got the
power to create new life, a new man who was never there before.
We need a Savior who's got the power to call us and draw us
to Christ by the preaching of the gospel. And we need a Savior
who's got the power to keep us. We need to be saved, and we need
to be kept saved, don't we? Because remember how easily sheep
will wander off? We need to be kept saved. That's the power. that we need and the Lord Jesus
Christ has all that power and the way he demonstrated it was
showing his power as the creator. He just as he broke that bread
and those fish he created matter. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
4. Now that's the power of the Savior. We need him to speak to give
life and light to his people. We need him to speak the same
way he spoke in creation and said, let there be light. Let
the dry land appear, let the firmament appear, let the animals
appear. He spoke and it was so. We need him to speak in that
same power to create life in our hearts. 2 Corinthians 4 verse
6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Now, on the first day of creation,
when God said, let there be light, He didn't put that ball, the
sun, in the sky. That day was Christ. Let Christ
the light appear. And Almighty God speaks to the
hearts of His people and said, let there be light. We see Christ. We believe Christ. We love Christ. Now our Savior has the power
to do that. So you come to Him. You come
to Him in full assurance. He's got the power to save even
you, even me. He's got the power to do it.
You're never gonna come to Christ and find out, oh, well I'm such
a great sinner, Christ can't save me. No, you're not gonna
find that out. Nothing's too hard for God. God
has enough grace for you. Just like there's enough water
in the sea for the minnow. He got enough grace for you,
now you come. Now God feeds his people in his church. It's where
he causes his people to come down and sit by companies. And
that's where he feeds his church. And when Christ feeds his church,
he feeds them, he feeds us, him. Just like he teaches us him,
he feeds us him. Christ is the chef who prepares
the food. And Christ is the food for the hearts of his people.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ who's the bread of life. So the people
in God's church, you will only want, they will only want to
hear Christ preach because that's the only way they can feed on
him is by hearing him preached. See, it's Christ alone. What
the believer feeds upon, what the believer believes, what gives
life to our souls, it's Christ alone. We're not gonna use any
spices or sauces of man's religion, emotionalism and all those things. It's Christ alone that satisfies
all of God's people. It's Christ alone that saves.
It's Christ alone who's enough to satisfy the need of his people. If you just give me Christ, I'll
be satisfied. And Christ alone, Christ himself,
is a feast for his people. So that all of his people have
all they want. They have all they want. You want more? Take and eat it. Here it is. Take and eat. Isn't
that what the Lord said, remember? After he rose and they came,
he said, take and eat. Take and eat. You know, when everybody here
in this story, they had all they wanted, they were full. You know
when we quit eating? When there's no room for more.
I wish I could quit that and just eat when I was halfway full,
but no. I eat until I'm all the way full
and there's no more room. That's the way a believer eats
Christ. We believe Him. We feed on Him. We cling to Him
so there isn't any more room for anything besides Christ. And someone, you know, who doesn't
understand will say, you know, you're preaching a mighty narrow
message. You're preaching Christ alone. Just Him. Without anything that
we add to Him, I can do so many things. What about these things
I can add to Him? You preach Christ alone. What's one man? among all these sinners. He's everything. That's who He
is. He's everything. This is the Son of God incarnate. He's all your soul needs. He's
enough for your soul and He's also enough to save a number
no man can number. He's everything that we need.
Someone else will say, What's one man's righteousness
in the midst of all these sinners, in the midst of all this unrighteousness? What's one man's righteousness
amongst all this? Well, the answer is it's the
righteousness of God. It's the blood of God. It's him
who makes his people the righteousness of God in him. I'm telling you,
he will satisfy the need of every hungry sinner because of who
he is. because he's God. He's got the
power to save. And I tell you how you can know
for sure if God has saved you. Is Christ all you need? Is Christ
all you want? Does he fill you up? Then God
saved you. All right, here's the fifth thing.
The Lord uses preaching in his church to feed his people. Verse
41 says, when he had taken the five loaves and two fishes, he
looked up to heaven and blessed and break the loaves and gave
them to his disciples to set before them. And the two fishes
divided he among them all. Now this miracle took place in
a desert, which is a mighty good picture of the world in which
we live. It's a spiritual desert, isn't
it? Our hearts are spiritual deserts too. There's no life
in us. There's nothing to give life
in us. There's nothing to sustain life in us. The world in which
we live, in our hearts, they're barren wastelands. There's nothing
to give us life. There's nothing to sustain us
there, just like a desert. It goes on as far as the eye
can see. Now there is no natural life
there, but the Lord was there. And he took that fish and he
broke him and gave us a picture of the gospel. This is where
life comes from. This is where the forgiveness
of sin comes from. Spiritual life can only come
because of the death of Christ. When Christ died, his body was
broken under the rod of his father's justice against sin, his father's
wrath against sin. His body was broken. When we
observe the Lord's table, that's what we're observing. That bread
is a picture of the body of our Savior that was broken when he
died. And since his body was broken
for the sin of his people, all of his people have life. We have
life because Christ died the death we deserve. We have life
because his death satisfied God's justice for us. So now God's
justice demands our life, not our death. See, it's all in Christ. And this whole multitude had
something to eat till they were filled because the Lord broke
that bread. and he gave it to his disciples
to give to the people. Now that's a picture of preaching
the gospel. God's preacher. We go to the study and we pray. You just, you look at God's word and you
think, what am I doing? And we pray. Out of helplessness, out of need,
we pray. And we study, and we read, and
we pray, and we study, and we read, and we take what God gives
us, and we turn around and distribute it to God's people. You know,
God's preachers aren't given our point of view. We're preaching
and we're telling what God's given us to tell. We just take
what God has given us and turn and give it to God's people the
same way God gave it to us, exactly as it is in God's word. And God's
gonna make that effectual to his people. You know, obviously,
the disciples weren't much. Here, just a minute ago, they're
asking the Lord to send all these people away, you know. They don't
have any strength or their faith is weak at best. But the Lord
used them to feed that entire multitude. Obviously, that's
by the power of God, not by their power and their goodness, isn't
it? And the Lord didn't allow anything
to go to waste. After all the people were filled,
they took up 12 baskets full. They took away more than what
they started with. The Lord didn't allow any of
it to go to waste. Remember that bread broken, that
flesh of those fish broken is a picture of the sacrifice of
Christ. This I can promise you, not one drop of blood, not one
ounce of the sacrifice of Christ will ever go to waste. All of
God's elect shall be saved. And you know what else will never
go to waste? Your work of faith, your acts of faith. You know,
faith acts. If faith doesn't act, it's dead.
None of your efforts to serve the Lord will be wasted either.
God's not unrighteous to forget your acts of love, your labors
of love. It's not gonna be wasted. You
just do what God's put to your hand to do today and wait on
the power of the Lord to bless it. Could be, could be. He'll bless it just like he did
that boy's lunch. Wouldn't that be something? All
right, Lord bless you.